Taking Care of Begonias

Taking care of begonias requires bringing them inside for the winter and keeping them in the shade during the summer, as they prefer mild temperatures. Keep a begonia blooming through the summer and fall with plant tips from a sustainable gardener in... View Video Transcript

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Yolanda Vanveen

Video Transcript

Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about what is taking care of begonias. Now begonias are a great shade plant for outside. They don't ask for a whole lot and they bloom all summer through the fall. But they make great indoor plants as well and there's a few rules that you should follow when you're growing begonias. Now this begonia has been in a pot outside all summer, bloomed beautifully and it's December in the Northwest, and we're starting to freeze just barely at night, so they're actually starting to turn yellow and die back a bit. But they're still such a beautiful plant that I hate to really cut them back until they really turn brown because we are getting some frost at night, I think it's best that I put it in the greenhouse and take it out from outside because I've lost a few outside. The pot gets really wet and then it freezes hard and turns into an ice cube you'll lose them, so I'm just going to leave it dry in the greenhouse and so I'm just going to cut the foliage off because it's really not looking good anyway. And I'm just going to leave it in the pot in the greenhouse, but I want to show you what the bulbs look like too 'cause you can turn around and plant them outside again, in the spring, right into the ground. But when I'm growing my begonias, the bulbs are kind of hard to tell which way is up, so let me show you real quick. So now the begonia bulbs are just like little clods of dirt and you can't really tell 'cause there's so much dirt on them. You see where the stem has come up and they have the clod right there, and I could just leave those in a paper bag for the winter and plant them again the spring or what I'm planning to do is just leave them dry in the pot, but if you live somewhere where you can't protect them in the winter in a greenhouse then you can always dig them up and just leave them in a paper bag and them plant them back out in the spring. And make sure that you don't give them direct hot sun because they do like shade better than sun and they'll burn if they get too much sun. And that's pretty much the only roles that begonias need. And so I'm fortunate I can just put them back into my greenhouse and then throw them back outside in the spring and they've lived from year to year no problem. I've even put begonias right into the ground right around the eaves, and they've made it outside in our climate in the northwest for four to five years till we had a really hard winter and I lost them. So they're one of those plants that's marginal in mild areas, if you live in a warm climate leave them outside year round, if you live in a cold climate, start them indoors in the pot, get them growing first indoors and then throw them outside. But begonias do go through a dormant cycle so even if they're inside or a warm climate they'll die back from time to time, cut the greens back, let them dry out for a month or two, not completely, you want to give them a little bit of moisture, and then just add water again and they'll grow immediately. Begonias are such a beautiful plant for your garden.